Archive for November, 2008

Katowice, a city in southern Poland, is one of the most rapidly developing Polish metropolis with an estimated population of around 320,000 people in the core urban area alone.

Having to upgrade both hard- and software of large numbers of computers are a significant budget item of any large administration. Licenses for proprietary software contribute significantly to IT costs, especially since software licensed for old computers often cannot be transferred to new ones.

Therefore, Katowice Municipality decided in 2005 to start implementing and using OpenOffice.org on almost all the computers in the city administration. Since then, Katowice’s IT department installs OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office on all newly bought computers. The financial analysis, in this respect, has shown many drawbacks of buying and upgrading proprietary software in the municipality. Firstly, as it has already been mentioned, computers have to be replaced frequently due to their heavy utilization by the civil servants. This means that for every new computer, a new software license has to be bought. Secondly, the need for updating old software on already existing hardware creates a budgetary burden, especially when updating all of the 850 computers in the Municipality. Finally, the need for creating training sessions for civil servants on the updated versions was another point favoring the use of the free OpenOffice.org.

The case of Katowice Municipality is a good example how public administration can save a substantial amount of money by deploying free software. It also shows that OpenOffice.org can easily substitute proprietary software without much special preparation on the technical level. Given the growing availability of high-quality open source programs for desktops and servers, Katowice clearly stands poised to lead the way towards much greater usage of this type of software in the Polish public sector.

As a result – successful deployment of OpenOffice.org on 450 computers with substantial savings of EUR 100,000 on licensing fees.

Internet Society – Bulgaria also initiated such project in 2004, with the financial support of UNDP – Bulgaria. Details on that project are also available in this document.
Unfortunately, after the project end, the whole information flow on the topic ended. All the opportunities, created from being a pilot municipality in a country in transition, all the chances to position the city under your management in a nice way, being an example in the EU and non EU regional community went to the wild.

I want to very clearly explain to whoever tries to twist the question on what was our role after the project:
ISOC – Bulgaria is not a post-controlling body, we do not have any jurisdiction over municipalities, advisory role, neither financial or human resources to service computer configurations, stimulate employees and doing PR for the local administration units. We worked hard to draft the idea, to create the circumstances for its realization and to implement it. We showed a way to make things better.

Today, three yeas after the project I have no idea neither the deployed OpenOffice.org packages have been still there and used, whether the employees are stimulated to enhance their computer literacy, nor how much the municipalities are saving by using free software. Because probably the mayor has changed, and the new one started to build his own empire on the ruins of the previous one’s accomplishments. Because, obviously in my poor little country, saving taxpayers’ money is not a priority. Too bad, Bulgaria.

I will try to finish this article in a positive way, inspired by constant German influence: hard work is needed, gentleman, more work.

An interesting and useful initiative by the fellowship of FSFE – an information repository on how to get a refund for the software license fee, people are bound to pay even if they have no intention to use that specific software.

The “Windows Tax” has artificially increased hardware prices for users of GNU/Linux by a mandatory payment to Microsoft even though no Microsoft software is being used on these machines. The reason: Almost any computer and laptop is bundled with a Microsoft Windows licence. Most vendors will not sell computers without it because apparently their terms with Microsoft do not allow it.

The only way to counteract that “Windows Tax” on PCs and laptops is to ask for a refund, but details on this process are not easy to find, and there is no central repository to allow people gather and share their information with the process.

Based on the current regulation, everyone who provides public digital networks and services is obliged to retain data of each mobile call and each digital message sent over the internet. The following entities have access to the collected data: MIA’s directorate (in general); the court and related bodies (for the purposes of criminal cases); and bodies engaged with security and public order (for the purposes of national security). Legal experts say that the acceptance of this regulation breaches the Constitution of Bulgaria, the European convention for human rights and the EC legislation.

The project aims to provoke a public debate in Bulgaria on the controversial issues of this public act. Through this debate, which would include representatives of all involved parties – the government, the business, the lawyer community, as well as individuals – there will be clarified the issues regarding the privacy of digital information. There will be made suggestions to the parliament of the Republic of Bulgaria for changing the public act in order to comply with the EU legislation and the general principles of digital freedom and privacy of the data exchanged over different communication channels. It is important to mention, that the Regulation number 40 was adopted in Bulgaria as a result of implementing an EU Directive, therefore the results of the project will have a Pan-European perspective.

The main objective of the project is to provide trainers in vocational training with the skills, competences and knowledge to offer training in the field of Open Source Software and related issues to their learners.

The project will create a knowledge base, which provides the trainers with access, not only to learning and training materials on Open Source Software, but also with specific knowledge on learning experiences with these materials, both from the point of view from the learner, as from the trainer that has used the material.

The project will help improve the quality and innovation regarding vocational training linked to Open Source Software, in fact, it will provide trainers and teachers as well as the institutions and organizations in the vocational training field with a powerful tool, allowing them to access to training materials related with the Open Source Software and choose those materials that better adjust to the specific environment and learning situation. This will improve the quality of the training offered in this field. The knowledge base provides an innovative way of accessing training materials, in a field where there is a growing demand of training materials adapted to every learning situation. TRAIN-OS will respond to these needs by facilitating access and use of Open Source Software training materials and related issues, and offer support services to improve both the quality of the training as well as the skills and qualifications of the teachers and trainers themselves.

Risk Management has been considered in the past decades as costly and interfering with normal business and structures. Nevertheless, as recent reports demonstrate Risk Management (RM) is nowadays an excellent way to improve European competitiveness in the global market. However, the management of SMEs (1-250 employees) is hardly aware of the advantages of RM implementation. Research revealed that 27% of SME management discuss the risk profile of the business annually or less often, while 19% discuss specific risks annually or less often.

The main objective is to provide SME managers and workforce with the knowledge, competences and skills to implement RM at the foundation of their enterprise, that is, by offering their employees an easy-to-use risk identification toolbox. To establish the right environment an integral awareness, information and training plan will be developed, which will provide the staff with needed knowledge, competencies and skills to design and implement controls and measures.
Special focus will be on European SMEs of food/feed producing and processing industry, as this sector is very much affected by the large impact of risks regarding product liability, hygiene failure and market changes, due to a very transparent logistics and end-user market.